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Posted on: Nov 22, '08

A Bottle of W(H)ine!

A Bottle of W(H)ine!!!

Talk of ‘Customer Service’! I was at Copper Chimney, Bangalore, Friday; just an evening out; wining and dining (no dancing though)! A close-knit group of four! The ambience was great; a spacious set-up, plush carpets, soft hues, muted lights and discreet waiters. Discreet, yes; but a tad disoriented too? We were ready to place our order, and then began the fun!

This fair, slim and tall, uniform clad guy(let’s call him Mr. Clueless) came to take the order; my friend Ragu asked for Sula wine. Well-------there was no response; he wore such a blank expression. Another almost similar looking guy came up and offered to help; between the two of them, they did manage to understand and said that they would check if it was available.

A long time later, in which we could have almost discussed the weather and Obama, Cluless came back and said, ‘Sorry sir; we don’t have Sula’; plz go in for --------------(sorry, I fail to remember what he said). Ragu has this ‘rebel’ in him that’s not so obvious to strangers; and his SOH and sarcasm are par excellence. The best part is that he can drip sarcasm and dish out rudeness with such a straight face and in the most polite tones!

He said, ‘Your job is to inform us if Sula is available; plz don’t suggest other names; and give me the choices’! Clueless became his name! He looked so lost that Ragu translated the message into Hindi; Clueless still wore this expression of utter incomprehension! Ragu was losing his last vestige of a short-supplied patience! But the poker face remained as poker as ever! He asked in a stingingly biting tone, ‘Tell me what language you understand, and I’ll try to talk that’! Clueless was still clueless!

Finally, after more interrogations from Ragu and several interventions from other waiters around, we decided to go for ‘Grover’, red wine; clueless gave a 1000 watt smile that showed ‘perfect understanding’, went away, and promptly fetched us Grover, white wine! Boy! You should have seen Ragu’s face! I wish I had a camera to picture it for progeny!

He turned around and beckoned a waiter and asked, ‘Is there a manager here’? The guy who responded to this question was all-polite and apologetic and asked what we wanted. By then all of us were in a murderous mood; I piped in and demanded for another waiter to attend on us. The guy mumbled something under his breath that sounded like, ‘this table, he takes care’! So, we acquiesced and decided to play along for a while.

I wanted to order starters; I informed Clueless that all of us were vegetarians and asked him what was on the menu. Pat said Clueless, ‘we have lamb madam’! That was it! We broke into laughter at that; and thanks to Clueless, it set the tone for the entire evening.

A few more attempts from us, a little more effort from him, we were finally settled with our red wine and starters; and we laughed throughout; all of us were in great moods and Ragu, of course was in his elements. Folks at the other tables were throwing quizzical glances at us; some puzzled; some mad; some that said, ‘what a noisy lot’!

But for Clueless’ poor comprehension skills, the evening was great; though the gourmet wasn’t the ‘out of this world’ kind, it was passably palatable. Ragu continued to be in his elements and we continued our ‘laughing madness’; not to mention the others continued throwing our way the, ‘if looks could kill’ glances!!!

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manisha_bhattacharya said:

December 01, '08

leanranger38 said:
u should thank mr clueless as he gave u a clue as what next to write in ur blog.
keep blogging , the blog was entertaining to read.

November 26, '08

harsh7901 said:
when it comes to wine ...me too become clueless... btw...which wine is good.. red... blue.. yellow... white or green?

i've heard all wines taste sweet... what a waste of time n money.. why not hv patiala instead??

but i did enjoy ur post cj...with raghu in his elements...

thnx for sharing...

November 25, '08

thepatriot2008 said:

lol...porr Mr.Clueless must be a nerves wreck by the time you guys left the place...great writing savoured every bit of the story ...though in the begining me thought that it was unkind to treat Mr.clueless that way....later I came to understand that it's not the person but the inefficiency that drove u guys crazy

November 25, '08

Novacaine said:
Lol! Nice blog post, as always Chithra! But I wonder what's wrong with the reply lamb? A lamb IS vegetarian, right?

So did you guys have any main course also?

Would like to know what Cluless did with that!

November 25, '08

impeccabledude said:
one more saga of pathetic service. I experience this quite often, high restaurants with plusher ambiance will offer you highly pricey food, with no taste and poor service, and funnier part is waiters are totally ignorant and management thinks that all is well, until customers starts screaming.

November 25, '08

Giftedguy said:
Woow!! Nice....

November 25, '08

SweetAdonis said:
What a funny blog, chitra.. Pure comedy ...

Mr. Clueless is a cool title

Dummies are everywhere. Be it copper chimney or KFC. They bungle around and go hide when a customer fumes

Take it easy..

November 25, '08

sazzyme said:
kill me...but wotz the point? huh?

November 24, '08

skhawa said:
105[?]elements are recognised by IUPAC, which one is missing in /or is in excess, in Raghu..
grrnn. Loved the episode[is it the right term]..U know my comprehenssion.. Chithrajust..
what a name..

November 24, '08

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